The 'Ponts' of May

Some You Get, Some You Don't

Paris:- Sunday, 16. May 1999:- At times when I
have nothing to do sometimes I do nothing, but at other
times I may pass the time wondering who runs France.

All of Europe has the same calendar month of May as
France, so what goes on here may not be unique. A lot of
the things I don't understand, I just write off as being
'French logic.'

According to my calendar, there are four official
holidays in May: Saturday the 1st, Saturday the 8th,
Thursday the 13th and Monday the 24th. According to what
I've been told and what I read in the papers, there is also
a National Ministry of Education - a body that you might
think decides the dates of school holidays.

The magic word is 'pont' which means bridge, and usually
applies to a Thursday - which makes Friday the 'pont,' to
form a four-day weekend; or Tuesday which does the same
thing with an orphaned Monday.

With a careful distribution of these four May holidays,
in some years the whole month is a weekend - except for all
the people who have to work on Saturdays.

But not this year, not with two of the crucial dates
falling on Saturdays. School holidays - Easter? -
ended at the
beginning of the month, but my calendar shows an 'official
pont' of four days, from Saturday, 22. May to Tuesday, 25.
May. This is Pentecôte and it ranks somewhat higher
than Ascension, which is also in May, on the 13th.

An adult, looking at this calendar, would see a possible
'pont' for Ascension, if the employer agreed to let Friday
be free - and a real 'pont' because of Monday the
24th.

In case you wondered, people who can afford
more than jeans, can afford Yves Saint-Laurent. Worth every
centime too!

However, the Education Ministry sees it all differently.
First, Saturday is considered a necessary half-school day,
because Wednesday is only a half-school day.

This means that the school people have to agree to allow
Saturday to become part of a 'pont.' Since education in
France became national and universal in the 1880's, nobody
has bothered to formulate any logical guidelines - and the
result can be total and incomprehensible chaos.

One kid in a family gets the 'pont' on Monday and the
other is accorded the 'pont' for the Saturday, while dad
gets his on Friday - and it adds up to a useless non-long
weekend.

Secondary schools - only in general, mind you - got
Friday, 14 May as a non-'pont' while their fellows in
primary classes got the day off. The little kids will not
get Tuesday, 25. May off, but the older ones will.

Then the double-whammy is added: if no Saturday is an
official holiday, it doesn't mean everybody gets a freebie
because it is in the middle of a 'pont.' Oh no, an extra
half or whole day is added on to a Wednesday - a day when
many arrangements have been made - and paid for - for the
kids to have alternate activities.

Official school days in France only amount to 180 days a
year. The psycho-time keepers have a theory
that no kid can survive a period longer than seven weeks
without a major 'pont' or better yet, two weeks
off.

More thread shops, near the new Marché
Saint-Germain.

Most parents, if they are not schoolteachers, get most
public holidays off and maybe a couple of 'ponts' as well
as four, five or six weeks of paid holidays a year. It may
sound like a lot, but it is a lot less than schoolkids
get.

It means that parents in France are constantly
scrambling to try and match their free time with the free
time of the kids. What can't be matched might have to be
taken as unpaid time away from work, or require payments to
a person or organization to mind the kids.

Until a year or two ago, the day fixed for return to
school after the very long summer holidays, was usually a
Tuesday or a Thursday. Never mind that all holiday rentals
run from Saturday to Saturday. The last day of the school
year was always a Thursday or a Tuesday too, if it wasn't a
Wednesday.

Can you imagine trying to coordinate this with
co-workers who also have kids? Well, you can't and they
can't and it's a wonder there isn't civil war.

What happens for the big summer holidays happens in
mini-form throughout the month of May every year.

So what about the government minister
responsible for all this 'French logic?' Madame
Ségolène Royal has three school-age children;
one got the Ascension 'pont' but not the Pentecôte,
the other two get Pentecôte and the one who got
Ascension, doesn't.

She is reported to be 'tolerant' because she understands
the difficulties school have with managing time. She was
instrumental in getting Monday as the back-to-school day
following 'Les Grands Vacances.'

Today looks nice
enough, but the cool east wind keeps terraces empty - even
for tea.

But for the 'ponts,' the bridges of May, she has
'received no clear instructions.'

As she is minister in charge of France's national
education system, I am trying to figure out just who it
might be who could be in the position of lending Madame
Ségolène Royal some 'clear instructions.'

Could it be there isn't anybody, and there are no 'clear
instructions?' Could it be that nobody 'runs' France? If
this is the case, then I can quit wondering about this.

I can wonder instead about why Paris' football team,
PSG, seems to have disappeared.